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Linux Conference Australia Write-Up
I was actually invited to come to present the hacker survey that OSDN had done in conjunction with the Boston Consulting Group. However, upon looking at the conference plans, it was quickly apparent that that would be one of the few non-technical presentations, which was a pleasant change from my normal conference regime, in which the technical stuff seems crammed into one half day. I've heard that OLS is quite similar, but have not had a chance to attend. Nonethless, obviously my work withstanding *grin* the presentations were excellent - read the program to see for yourself.
I was able to attend Tridge's keynote, having only arrived Wednesday morning, a ARQuake presentation done by Wayne Pierkarski (we've mentioned it before). The afternoon was spent at Conrad's presentation on sweep, which is a hella cool audio app. Finally, the Q&A was Rusty, BDale, Tridge and Linus. Some of the typcial questions were asked, but there were some other questions 'round about DRM, IPv6 and some of the more social questions that were interesting. I think the DRM issues is one of the areas that some people are greatly concerned about, while other people have adopted a more Pollyana approach to it.
Unfortunately, on Friday, while I was presenting, there were two other presentations that I wanted to attend, but alas, had to speak myself. Rasmus, as usual, did a number of talks, and I was able to catch part of PHP printing with PDF, which was informative. Alex Reeder, part of VA Linux Japan also did a presentation on his work with bioauthentication, and my final piece of the show was Horms' presentation on Perdition, a mail retrieval proxy he's been working on.
But presentations aside, which were as a rule exceptional, I think one of the best parts was the relaxed feel, and the amount of interchange between just about everybody here. Almost every one that you talked to was fluent in Linux, programming or what not, which made for easy conversation with everyone there. The Perthites who really managed to put this together also did an exceptional job. To be frank, this is the only show I'd ever consider travelling 13,500 miles for.
I'd encourage anyone who attended or was part of it to post below -- and here's to looking forward to next year. One of the most amusing pictures though has to be the Linus in the penguin suit. The hats are off to the organizing team for their hard work -- and the speakers who traveled afar to be part of this. And from the wonderful uses of pizza box - yet more zaniness.
You can also check out some of photo round ups from Leon, Noel, and, of course, Marc Merlin's done a great round-up, as well as group round-up and one final one.
Overall, I highly highly recommend this show -- probably one of the best on the planet -- and for those in know, 23 will fall.
Rusty's talks were highly amusing, while still containing a technical edge. The dinner on Friday night was brilliant (300 geeks slowly getting smashed!). A T-shirt signed by all the luminaries at the kernel summit was auctioned for $AU 2100. It was quite a contest between Sun and IBM, with Sun representative Duncan Bennet making the winning bid. IIRC Bdale Garbee promised to name the next Debian release after the winning bidder, if the amount went over $AU 2000. So I guess we can all look forward to Debian Solaris!! :-)
a ^= b; b ^= a; a ^= b;
And yet they write great software that's powering a lot of business. Maybe you should reassess your priorities?
I was there, dressed in shorts and tshirt. Which is exactly what I wear to work.
My first conference, mainly because I'm a Perth native. The atmosphere and level of information presented was excellent, and I'll most probably end up heading to Adelaide next year :)
I was there, the whole thing was impeccably organised and executed. Congrats to the organisers and presenters. For someone who is used to commercial conferences with their "Managing Your Server-side OLTP Business Process Modelling with [Acronym / Buzzword of the Month]" - style marketing presentations, this was a breath of fresh air. The technical knowledge present was immense, every person there was enthusiastic, and I left feeling inspired and motivated. One of the greatest moments for me was watching the reaction of Linus, Tridge and Bdale to one of the "How do you think Linux will bring about World Peace" style questions. Tridge's answer: "Just don't think about it too much." That really illustrated for me the whole mood of the conference - technical people doing what they love doing, with no (or little) politics and no marketing crap. And Rusty - the man is not just a genius. In fact he's definitely not a genius. But he sure can take the piss! ;P
It's great to see all the Linux coverage, especially from media sources that are general interest in nature rather than exclusively technical.
However, there is one interesting side effect that Linux advocates should keep a watchful eye for. With the increase in publicity also comes the increas in misinformation. It isn't always intentional (such as FUD from Microsoft that is so often complained about on Slashdot), but it can be annoying (or worde, damaging) nonetheless.
Take for example, the article from "The Age" mentioned above. This is a minor example, but illustrates my point well:
Rather than copyrighting the Linux code, Torvalds published it on the Internet and invited others to offer improvements.
Sure, Linus freely distribtued the code to his Linux project on the internet, however the code to Linus REMAINS COPYRIGHTED. This mis-statement was not meant to damage the Linux cause--but it doesn't help the general public understand the concept of "Free" software versus free (as in beer), and that Free Software doesn't mean anti-copyright.
In fact, copyright is the very thing that keeps the source to Linux truly Free. Without the power of copyright the owners of Free source code would have no way of defending the GPL. Conversely, developers couldn't choose to distribute their works in traditional closed-source fashion. Although copyright law has been perverted and abused in recent years, copyright in its truest sense is a fundamental right in the protection of "free speech" (not only should citizens enjoy reasonalbe protection to express their thoughts as they wish to--be it the spoken or written word, music, film or even computer programming--they should also have some right to control how that expression is used). It's a tough balancing act of course--the DMCA extends much to far into the realm or IP protection, allowing the owner of copyrighted work so much unchecked power that it stifles freedom of expression.
Such a simple mis-statement and it warrants an entire article on its own. To assist the press in accurate coverage, perhaps the organisers of Linux conferences should put together press kits that place a lot of emphasis on the concept of Free Software and background on Linux that extends beyond pure technical information. Of course one cannot be sure writers would read the material, however ditribution of such information would make it easier to respond to widely published factual errors
Perhaps some letters to the editor praising the positive coverage, and at the same time correcting misinformation would do a lot of good for the Linux community...
Err, I was also at this conference wearing my "professional journalist" badge... and I had zero problems with the dress code, at all.
Hell, I wore a pair of long pants - once. And that was because I found it a little chilly on one of the days. The rest of the time I was shorts and shirt.
While I agree that a certain amount of professional attire is relevant in some situations, this type of conference is clearly not the place where suit and tie are appropriate. Or, indeed, welcome. In fact, a couple of the guys from Sun were commenting at how refreshing it was NOT to see any suits in sight!
It is, of course, possible that the the hacker in me was just trying to shirk the responsibilities of the office, but having jumped from being a professional programmer to writing for a living, I sure as hell know which dress code I prefer.
And, typically, it was my programming job that required the three-piece, not the writing gig!